Berlin: a Renovation of Postcards LOIS WEINTHAL University of Texas at Austin
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Berlin: A Renovation of Postcards LOIS WEINTHAL University of Texas at Austin INTRODUCTION December 2004. The location for this exhibit sym- bolically recognizes the meeting of East and West Postcards capture a snapshot in time, merging in two ways, first-through the pairing of two im- images of architecture, people and the cityscape. ages of the same place but under different political The image on a postcard records a distinct place regimes; and second-the location of this station and time, while the back of the postcard offers a being the physical threshold between East and West personal story-one that is only understood between where trains stopped. The exhibition of images the sender and receiver. Upon closer investiga- allows occupants and tourists to see the city in a tion, details in the image along with the sender's context that they previously knew, or one in which narrative offer a personal reading of the city. This they currently know. project entitled: Berlin: A Renovation of Postcards begins with vintage postcards of the former East Lustgarten Berlin and are re-inserted into current panoramic views. By focusing on details found in the postcards, clues about the larger political and economic realm surface that offer a view into details found in the urban fabric such as monuments, political markers, building typologies and personal details such as the clothing on occupants. The encounter of two times in one place reveals differences in the larger political structure of a city as seen in the renovation of urban nodes and architecture. Most recently, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the diffusion of western ideology and capitalism have changed the cityscape of the former East Berlin, while also retaining buildings from both pre and post World War 11. As a result, the cityscape offers views into buildings that have been built, renovated, demolished and re-built. Visual cues such as advertising, architecture, and Figure 1: Lustgarten: 1912 & 2003 the appearance or disappearance of monuments are the focus for this series of images of East Berlin. The postcard as a snapshot documents a moment The postcards are re-inserted into their existing and continues to transcend time until it becomes a conditions, thereby revealing an encounter between vintage postcard. The postcards collected for this two times in one location, between the past and the investigation offer views into places from other ongoing present. times, such as a postcard dated 1912, with a view of the Berliner Schloss, the original Palace in Berlin These double exposure images were exhibited in (Figure 1). Old postcards are physically dated not the Berlin Friedrichstrasse U-Bahnhof station in only by their sepia colored image, but also through BERLIN 131 the people and clothing they wear. In the postcard image of the original palace, Iimagine it being a hot summer day in 1912, where men are seen wear- ing three-piece suits and women wear long heavy dresses as was only proper at the time. The ghosts of these people walk through the site as Ihold the postcard and look out to the same site in Decem- ber 2003 - 91 years later. I show my friend who is visiting me this postcard and she immediately knows where it is because of the big granite bowl in front of the Altes Museum by Friedrich Schinkel. Everything across the street has changed as a result of changing political regimes. The original palace was destroyed in World War 11, and the remains demolished in 1951 only to be replaced by the East German palace built in the 1970s. The Berlin Wall Figure 2: Strausberger P/J~z:1971 & 2003 came down in 1989-indirectly leaving the current palace in its present state-vacant, which is now under debate as to whether or not to demolish it would provide apartments for its citi2ens.l These and replace it with a replica of the original palace. apartment buildings represent East Germany's The debate about whether or not to re-build the first attempt to provide mass housing after World original palace reveals the yearning of nostalgia in War 11. As construction continued, the cost would architecture and interiors. Interiors, in particular, exceed the allowed budget, thereby having to are often succumbed to historic styles as clients discontinue this building type and inherit the Plat- yearn for a fashion of a previous era of which they tenbau - a housing type made of pre-fabricated have never experienced. This encounter between concrete slabs developed in the Soviet Union. A interior and exterior, and their formal relationship to few blocks north of Strausberger Platz, is the Platz one another can be found in Robert Venturi's Com- der Vereinten Nationen (United Nations Square) plexity and Contradiction in Architecture. Venturi formerly called Leninplatz. Postcards can now be uses examples of facades and their corresponding found at flea markets of the original Lenin statue interior plan and section to show a distinct or non- that stood in front of a series of Plattenbau housing distinct relationship between the inside and outside. structures. Shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall When one encounters the relationship of interior in 1989, the monument to Lenin would be removed and exterior, the two spaces can be read in unison, and occupied by a void in 1991.' In its place now or when unsuccessful, as a rupture in the overall stand boulders from different countries referencing architecture. a new international relationship. This act of erasing the former socialist regime through the removal of At a larger scale, the debate in Berlin about whether monuments can be seen in the recent German film, or not to demolish the ex-isting palace and replace Goodbye Lenin. it with a replica of the original has raised questions about the meaning of architecture and the long- Plattenbau ing for nostalgic styles. What makes one long for As Gaston Bachelard writes about The Poetics of a style in which they were never part of? Is there Space, one can also ask about the politics of space, safety in residing in a familiar style although not the economics of space, and the monuments of part of one's past? space. After World War 11, the new city fabric of sat- Strausberger Platz ellite cities in East Berlin would be built simultaneous to the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961. The A view to the Fernsehturm-the East German televi- integration of housing back into the city fabric was sion tower as seen from Strausberger Platz, acts a designed by the Soviet Union, as they developed focal point along Karl-Marx-Allee (Figure 2). This new methods of prefabricated housing that East grand boulevard, which began construction in 1951, Germany adopted called Plattenbau. This housing was known as Germany's first socialist street that was developed to solve a housing shortage after World War I1 but also manifests a political identity of socialism keeping with the goals of the political system to develop one economic class. Since uni- fication, the facades and interiors, however, have changed at a much slower rate than the housing found in the original city fabric of East Berlin such as Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg, where the once gray and dismal streetscapes are giving way to scaffold- ing and brightly painted facades. As the residents of the former East acclimate to a new political and economic system, the architecture also mediates between the old and new, between the previous places made by the occupants in their memories and the imposition of a new space transformed by Figure 3: Alexanderplatz: 1986 & 2003 the change in political systems. Alexanderplatz By 1980, the GDR was in existence for over 30 years and had established a goal of creating an identity for itself through its political and economic systems. These systems were materialized through buildings types that could be recognized instantaneously on the facades. Postcards from East Berlin would place emphasis on newly designed urban nodes where Figure 4: Weltzeituhr: 1980 & 2004 the prefabricated facades would be seen such as in Alexanderplatz, a location rebuilt after World War Deutsches Historisches Museum 11. This socialist designed plaza was meant to stand in contrast to the classical node of the Museum Island with its cathedral, museums and Humboldt University. The desire of the GDR to establish a new modern city center was partly due to the continued tension between East and West Berlin, which acted as a microcosm to the larger realm of tensions be- tween the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The re-design of Alexanderplatz kept buildings and structures from before World War 11, Figure 5: Deutsches Historisches Museum such as two buildings designed by Peter Behrens and the location of the main train station (Figure A postcard dated 1963 of the German History Mu- 3). These original structures would be situated seum located at the edge of the Museum Island opposite new GDR structures such as commercial shows East German automobiles passing by the stores, a hotel, cultural centers, nearby Plattenbau, museum (Figure 5). This museum has recently along with a central fountain in the plaza and the undergone change with an addition by I.M. Pei. As Weltzeituhr - the World Time Clock that became a one looks closely at the postcard, a subtle piece of well-known place to rendezvous, and remains so information reveals changes in the image from 1961 (Figure 4). to the present. In the view from 2004, one can see three of four statues atop pedestals on a bridge. At the present, plans for Alexanderplatz entail de- The fourth pedestal, as seen in the vintage postcard molishing the GDR buildings and replacing them with is missing its statue.